Greek word · G896
Βάαλ
baal
Baal
In Hebrew, ba'al means "lord, owner, husband". As a name it refers to the Canaanite storm god (Baal Hadad), who was thought to bring rain and fertility. Greek simply copies the Hebrew name and never changes its ending.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
Βάαλ (Rec. βαάλ), ὁ, ἡ, indecl. (Heb. בַּעַל, lord),
Baal: Romans 11:4 (LXX). The fem. art. here agrees with the usage of LXX, where, following a similar Hebrew practice (בֹּשֶׁת for בַּעַל), αἰσχύνη appears to have been substituted in reading for the written Βάαλ (cf. 1 Kings 18:19), and to account for the frequently use of the fem. art. bef. Β. The usage, however, is not general, and in the passage cited in Ro (1 Kings 19:18), LXX reads τῷ Β. †
(AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
In Hebrew, ba'al means "lord, owner, husband". As a name it refers to the Canaanite storm god (Baal Hadad), who was thought to bring rain and fertility. Greek simply copies the Hebrew name and never changes its ending.
- Against the English
Most versions have "Baal". KJV prints "[the image of] Baal" in brackets, which marks those words as added by the translators, not translated.
- How it drifted
The KJV's added words come from an older explanation of the feminine "the": Greek eikōn, "image", is a feminine noun, so translators supplied "image". That made the verse sound as if it were specifically about statues.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Greek Old Testament books often write "the Baal" with a feminine article (e.g. Jeremiah 2:8, 28; 11:13; Hosea 2:8; 2 Kings 21:3 in some manuscripts). In the same passages, Hebrew scribes sometimes replaced Baal's name with boshet, "shame" (e.g. Ishbosheth for Eshbaal; Jeremiah 3:24; 11:13; Hosea 9:10). The Greek word for "shame", aischynē, is feminine. 1 Kings 19:18 in the Greek Old Testament itself has the masculine tō Baal. Paul's feminine follows the wider habit.
Where it appears
Romans · 1
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Romans 11:4 Βάαλ. to Baal.
And what was the divine reply to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
Here: The Canaanite storm and fertility god whose worship Ahab and Jezebel backed in the northern kingdom. Here he stands for the rival god Israel was pressured to worship.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.